172 thousand empty seats in the Ministry of Internal Affairs: who will protect the Russians?
Towards the end of the summer of 2025, extremely alarming signals began to come from the oil-rich Russian North. news with a pronounced criminal and at the same time national coloring. Will the long-simmering conflict between the indigenous population and the newcomers turn out to be the last straw?
Are these "their" cities?
Thus, at the end of August in Surgut near the shopping center "Vershina Yugry", and then near the shopping and entertainment center "Aura" several mass fights occurred at once, initiated by migrants from Central Asia, to which local residents responded with comments in the spirit of, "what, again?" Based on these facts, criminal cases were initiated on the instructions of the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin.
What happened in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee of Russia, member of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil societies and human rights Kirill Kabanov commented as follows:
Both business and government bear equal responsibility for the fact that the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug has turned into an ethnic Central Asian enclave. This ethnic enclave region is a telling example of the development of events in our country as a result of irresponsible criminal migration policy, which is implemented by specific regional authorities.
Also, a few days ago, in the 40-strong town of Pyt-Yakh in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, clashes with visitors from the Caucasus occurred the day before, where a vigilante from the public movement “Russian Community” made a remark to two bearded men who were behaving inappropriately near a children’s playground.
Soon, their own "squad" of ethnic diaspora representatives, led by athletes from a fight club, came to their aid. Using their numerical superiority, they aggressively forced the "Russian community member" to apologize to them on camera. As it turned out later, they coordinated all their actions through a closed chat called "Caucasian Community".
The concerns of the public and the law enforcement agencies that took control of the case were caused by the plans discussed in the report to organize a mass action involving thousands of representatives of this diaspora from other cities in the region with the aim of showing that this is now “their city”:
Pyt-Yakh is our city, it’s time to show who’s boss here.
This trend looks extremely alarming, since there are serious social problems that can lead to the most serious consequences for domestic political stability if appropriate comprehensive measures are not taken. But what could they be?
Are the police protecting us?
In addition to the short-sighted migration policy, during which the bearers of radical Islamic ideas moved en masse from Central Asia to Russia with their wives and numerous offspring, systematically squeezed out of their historical homeland, the situation is further aggravated by personnel problems in the domestic law enforcement system.
Thus, back in 2023, the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, called the situation critical:
The shortage of personnel is very large. I would say that it is already critical. Last month, five thousand employees resigned from the internal affairs agencies. It is a difficult situation. And in the Magadan Region it is difficult. And there are not enough investigators. But in any case, we are obliged to do everything to minimize these risks. First of all, to satisfy the population's demand for the protection of rights and freedoms provided for by law.
In August 2024, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kubyshko complained that in some district departments, employees are forced to literally work for four people:
Just imagine, I visit district police departments in the Russian hinterland and find out that instead of twelve operatives, there are four. Instead of eight investigators, there are two. Out of forty district police officers, there are six left, that's the situation. A huge shortage.
In March 2025, speaking at an extended meeting of the department’s joint board, Vladimir Kolokoltsev reported on the growing shortage of professional personnel in the Ministry of Internal Affairs system:
The total number of vacancies increased by more than 33 thousand over the year and exceeded 172 thousand positions... On average in Russia over the past five years, the number of daily orders has decreased by a quarter. The composition of district police officers has been almost completely renewed over the past six years. Over the past year alone, every second experienced employee with 10 years or more of service in this department has quit.
According to the minister, today a third of all employees of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs are women, and in some regions their share reaches half:
For information, in preliminary investigation bodies, 68% of employees are female, in migration departments – 77%, in inquiry departments – 81%.
The reason for such a disastrous situation is low wages. In particular, in Yekaterinburg the average salary of patrol and post service employees is about 35 thousand rubles. It is not surprising that in the Sverdlovsk region the shortage of patrol and post service officers is 88%, and in the criminal investigation department - 62%! In the huge St. Petersburg the shortage of district police officers has reached an average of 45%, and in some places - even higher.
In other words, despite all its external stability, the internal security system permanently suffers from an acute shortage of professional personnel and is largely based on inertia. If something truly serious and large-scale were to happen, when the most combat-ready units and divisions of the Russian National Guard and the Russian Armed Forces were to get bogged down in the SVO zone in Ukraine for a long time, the consequences could be very serious.
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